Daughter
by The Die Hard
Summary: Chloe's mom writes her a letter she will probably never see. Crossover with, you know, that blonde scientist Major. Added: Chloe's letter. Finally: Two bald guys.
1. Letter from the Gate

Daughter  
  
Disclaimer: me, make money on any of 'em? That's a joke, right?  
  
Dear Chloe,  
  
I've written you one of these letters every week for -- at least a decade now. It's hard to keep track of time, in my line of work. Yes, I know, you've never gotten any of them. Someday you will, though. They're all carefully stored for you, to be delivered when the time comes. And I know it's selfish of me, but I only hope it's later rather than sooner. I keep asking if I can send you something, anything, just to let you know I'm thinking of you, but the answer is always the same. Only in the event of my death.  
  
I had hoped that maybe, once you were more mature, my senior officers would let me trust you with my secret. Instead, you had to develop a reputation as a bulldog investigator and reporter with a taste for the bizarre and an unflinching ability to face it. Oh, my child! That the thing I'm most proud of you for, is the thing that makes it even more impossible to contact you and tell you so. If the gods are not crazy, then their sense of humor is somewhere beyond cruel.  
  
But then, I don't believe in gods, and neither do you. You inherited your tenacious nature from me. I should hardly be surprised.  
  
Look at that, I just wrote "tenacious." Jack would give me disbelieving stares for weeks if he ever found out. Daniel would -- never mind.  
  
Every week, I try to come up with a new way to say I'm sorry. I know it will never be enough. Everything I did was a mistake. Taking time off from the career I'd worked so hard for, when I knew I could never give it up. Falling in love with your father. Having you. All mistakes.  
  
I don't regret a single one of them. I wouldn't trade all the General's power for the few years I had with you.  
  
I'm not sure I wouldn't trade the whole team to see you again.  
  
But that would be treason, Chloe. Dereliction of duty. Not just to my job, my oath, but to my team-mates, my friends. I've seen enough of you to know that you understand what that means now. You would never betray your friends. If anything, you're more loyal to those you care about than I am. You get that extra from your dad, I guess. Gabe always was a rock.   
  
I'd give anything to be able to say goodbye to him properly. Someday, I just might. No matter what it costs.  
  
Speaking of friends, how on Earth (heh, inappropriate phrase) did you get mixed up with the Kryptonian?!? (Look at that, I used inappropriate and Earth and Kryptonian in the same sentence. Teal'C is going to -- never mind.) We've been combing the Gates and the galaxy for any survivors of that blasted (oops, not funny) planet, and there one is sitting right next to you! Jack and the General took turns throwing fits. I didn't know whether to roll on the ground laughing or join them.  
  
They almost let me contact you then. After all, if a being like Kal-El can trust you with himself -- and that lonely and frightened boy-creature does trust you, daughter mine, though it's literally impossible for him to come right out and say so, simply because of what he is -- then the General ought to trust you with the secrets of the rest of the aliens, of the terrible things we've found, of the war.   
  
Almost....  
  
Be gentle with him, Chloe. I know you won't get this until it's much too late, but I want you to know, however far down the line, that your inhuman friend is vulnerable in ways that humans aren't even capable of imagining. We're a brawling, vicious, never-give-up, chew-nails-for-breakfast, kick-ass-and-take-names-later species. He's a product of millions of years of introversion, almost incapable of fighting. Yes, yes, I know that under Earth's sun, he can juggle tanks. But mentally, emotionally, the Kryptonians had all the resiliency of cheap glass. Being raised as a human is the only reason he hasn't broken under the weight of his inhuman powers.  
  
And Kal-El -- or Clark, the name suits him somehow -- might be the only one left in the whole galaxy. I don't think even any of us could deal with that.  
  
You could hurt him with a look, a word. I hope you're, no, I trust you to be, smarter than that. To be careful of what you demand of him. If you let him down even once, if your ruin his hard-earned faith in humanity, it will be a terrible tragedy for more worlds than just Earth.  
  
Your friend (I will never get used to thinking that), the alien child with such enormous power, that we need so badly, is a weapon we dare not even prime, much less use, for fear of the backfire if he can't handle it. And you, my daughter, who will probably never see this even when I'm killed in action, are the only reason we know that the final option of a Kryptonian ally even exists. You are also one of his few links to sanity, and the strongest bet we have to help him through his (and your, of course) own crisis years, so that someday he might become one of us.  
  
Look at that, I wrote "backfire." Jonas would -- never mind.  
  
Chloe, my only child, my greatest love -- will you ever forgive me, not just for abandoning you, but for making you a pawn? Are there any gods who would forgive a mother, not for just leaving her child behind, but for turning everything about her over to the most ruthless of government agencies? I'll kill Hammond if he hurts you, but there was no way to keep you out of his surveillance. How can I begin to atone for destroying your innocence and happiness, for putting you at a risk you can't begin to imagine, even in the name of the good of all the galaxy?  
  
I asked, I even begged, to be put on the Kal-El mission. They turned me down, of course. Because of you. Jack at least didn't court-martial me for breaking his arm. He has kids he's not allowed to talk to, either.  
  
Maybe they'll let me drop in for a minute or two, by just to give you a hint. Your inadvertent friend (I bet Daniel didn't even think I knew that word) is as important as any of our other missions, after all. And we can always use the excuse of picking up some of those radioactive fragments of his former planet for our power sources. And just to see you, if only for a few minutes....  
  
- - - - -  
  
The intercom blared, interrupting Sam's attempts to think of anything else to leave to her daughter for posterity. "Major! Call to stations was four minutes ago! On the double!"  
  
"Sorry, sir! On my way!" Samantha Carter grabbed her weapons belt with one hand and her over-armor with the other, leaving the letter to the daughter she most probably would never see again unfinished, unclosed. Not that it mattered.  
  
She wrote pretty much the same thing every week. 


	2. Chloe is a better writer than her milita

Part 2 - Chloe  
  
Come on, how could I resist? Especially after all the great reviews. Shout-outs to all of you. Everybody go read all their wonderful stuff. Just click on the red "reviews" blip. (I'm so old, I remember when there wasn't even such a thing as hand calculators, much less hypertext links....)  
  
Dear Mom,  
  
Yeah, I know this will probably never get to you. How am I going to address it, anyway? I know what state you're in, but I doubt the artificial stupids at the post office recognize "Stargate" as a PO box.  
  
You weren't exactly easy to find. But you know your kid. Make it tough, and I get tougher. I guess I get that from you.  
  
I just wanted you to know that I appreciate that. All the years I spent blaming you, resenting you, feeling like I was abandoned -- now I know why. And I couldn't be happier. Or prouder. For who you are, mom, even for what you had to do to dad and me -- I love you more than I ever could love someone who would take the easy way out, give up what she was, what she believed in, to stay behind.  
  
No way would I ever do that. So I can hardly blame you for doing the same thing I would have done, now can I?  
  
Oh, I'll find you someday, believe me. Just stay alive until then, okay? I want to go through the Gate with you. I want to see what's out there. I want to KNOW.  
  
I want to tell you all about it. Face to face. Some day.  
  
I want you to know that, as great as dad is, your daughter is still following in your footsteps, in all the ways I can. Have been since I was a kid. Always wondered why, until I found the trail that led to you last year. I'm a born fighter too, in my own ways. I thought I was just choosing to rebel, but this apple didn't fall far from the mom she barely knew. Whatever amazing stuff you're into, I can't wait to be part of it.  
  
And hey, I don't think the Gate or whatever's on the other side would freak me any more than I've already been freaked. When dad got sent to No-wheresville, I thought my life was officially over. Instead, I found the weirdest things you can imagine. Amazing stuff! Incredible stuff! This blip on the map got hit by a freaking METEOR STORM over a dozen years ago, and NASA did its usual bureaucratic bungle and overlooked it with the "mostly harmless" routine.   
  
Only it wasn't, harmless, I mean. These leftover meteor rocks are some serious bad news. You ever run into anything that glows green or red on the other side of the Gate, mom, they are not Christmas decorations. Steer clear.  
  
We got boys turning into bugs, and girls going on a diet that would kill an elephant, and dead kids walking around freezing and dusting stuff with a touch, and you don't even want to know about the kid that split in half. Ew, gross, even for me. And I was DATING him. Yuck, it's a good thing I inherited a strong stomach, or I'd be replacing a keyboard right now.  
  
But, mom? This Stargate, this is alien technology, right? I mean, I trade hacking tips with MIT and Cal Tech and Rice, and they all think the idea of a whatever-dimensional portal is really cool, but nobody believes we have that kind of power or tech yet. So that means there are Others Out There, right? Not just slime mold on other planets, or million-year-old bacteria fossils, but people? Well, whatever, even if they have tentacles or look like spiders (uck), they're intelligent, right?  
  
I really need to know, mom. I'm really seriously considering hitchhiking all over the state until I find your top-secret whatever-it-is and bang on the door. Even if it's booby-trapped. Which it probably is. Because I really, really need to know if there are aliens out there. Intelligent aliens. Who might look like us.  
  
Because -- this is going to sound really stupid, and so maybe it's a good idea that you're not going to see this any time soon, if ever -- I think I know an alien.  
  
Shut up, mom. I never did like being laughed at. Just listen for a minute, okay?  
  
You're not going to believe this. I didn't believe it myself for a long time. I'm not sure I totally believe it now. I mean, he's so cute (cute, my typing finger, he's gorgeous), and nice, and friendly, and serious, and clumsy sometimes. Not a tentacle on him. (I've seen him in a wet swimsuit. I had to rewrite the article about the swim team three times. Never mind.) He's more like a big dumb puppy than someone who came from Out There.  
  
I can't believe I just wrote that. Keep your fingers away from the delete key, Chlo. Just remember to change your password and put it on screen lock.  
  
But yeah. He. This ... boy. Clark looks like a boy, anyway. Like one of us. But he can ... do things. Not like the bug-boy and the fat-sucking girl and the dead jerks. He's ... mom, sit down and put down your coffee if you ever read this.   
  
He ... Clark ... can move so fast he practically disappears. He busted the sound barrier once. There. I wrote that. I know what a damn sonic boom is. I know a damn sonic boom from a damn tornado, and I know way more about tornadoes now than I ever wanted to. And he ... Clark, the cute and clumsy nice-puppy one -- was moving faster than the damn tornado.  
  
He can ... okay, I've seen world-wide wrestling. (I can't believe I just admitted to that.) Well, I've watched the Olympics, too. I've seen guys who can pick up some serious weight. But they're all BIG guys, right? Like, getting out of bed in the morning is weight lifting for them.  
  
The cute puppy-dog looks-like-a-boy carries about as much weight on his bones as I do, even if he is half again my height. And mom, put down the coffee. I don't think any of the guys I've seen on the Olympics can lift a tractor. With one hand. And kind of, absently, while he was looking under the whatever-that-thing-is on the back. Like he wasn't paying attention. To picking up the tractor. With one hand.  
  
No, mom, I am not doing drugs. Unless you count that awful coffee at the stupid kid's hangout. Okay, maybe they drug the lattes just to keep people coming back. Even our resident billionaire sometimes drinks the stuff, so obviously it has to be drugged. (Did I tell you we had a resident billionaire? Of course I did. Lex Luthor probably funds Stargate. Hopefully without his jack@$$ of a father knowing. Maybe he'll know where to find you....)  
  
I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking the same thing. I'm you're daughter, of course we think the same things. So we have bug boys and fat-sucking girls and dead kids walking, why shouldn't someone be just a little faster and stronger? And I did write "little" there just to try to snap myself out of this insanity. I need some decent coffee.  
  
But mom, that's not the stuff that trips the weird-o-meter scale. See, the crazies around here don't even care that they're crazy. We had one guy, and he was a nutcase if there ever was one (except for his dad, who pushed the word "@$$" and "hole" to entire new levels, and if I'm ever assigned to one of his classes again, I will ask to borrow Lex's rapier). Anyway, this kid suddenly turned up with speed and strength to match Clark's, and he went berserk. And, like, who could blame him, with such an @$$ for a father?  
  
And now you're saying, "get to the point." I'm trying, mom. But I bet even the Stargate doesn't prepare you for stuff this bazer. (That's how our Polish history teacher pronounces "bizarre." It's kind of caught on.)  
  
Nice puppy-dog went after this nutcase, and got his stuff whipped. Broken ribs, face like a busted radish. And the next day he was perfectly fine. It was like nutcase and puppy-dog had changed places for a day. (And no, I did NOT watch that soap opera. Never. Not even after a home-brewed beer.)  
  
But the point, mom, is that the crazies don't make a habit of hiding it. On the other hand, the cute, nice, clumsy puppy is so scared of anybody finding out what he can do that he sneaks around like a combat grunt on point in trip-line alley. (I learned that one from a book, so quit worrying. I bet you actually DO lead point in trip-line alleys, so I AM allowed to worry.) He doesn't just lie bald to your face when you ask a straight question, he HIDES. He hides EVERYTHING. He tries to hide his SHOE size, which is an exercise in futility (I always wanted to use that phrase), since he's got feet the size of a small yacht.  
  
Clark ... I ran his adoption papers, he was adopted the day of the meteor storm. Are there still people out there that stupid? Well, yes, there are still a couple of people who vote republican. A kid shows up from nowhere, with no background, and I mean I checked the Romanian orphanages here, and is taken in by a couple (the Kents are really nice people, by the way, if you ever need a place to hang out or a great meal, I can point you the right way) who have just found out they can't have kids, on the same day that all of hell comes down from space?  
  
When I write my Hugo-winning novel, I am not going to resort to such a tacky premise. As Marion Zimmer Bradley said, suspending disbelief does not mean hanging it by the neck until it's dead.  
  
And there's something else really off about him and the meteorites. I'm not going to write about it here. That guy from Philly has already hacked my password twice. If ... when ... we meet face to face, mom, I have some other things to tell you about those things that are not decorations. Let it suffice (I can't believe I just wrote that) that bug boys and dead jerks are not the worst thing they do.  
  
I'm not the greatest at biology, mom. I'm an investigator, though. Some people even say I'm a good one. I might could work pretty well with you. I could find out things. You could tell me what to look for. (Screw ending a sentence with a preposition. For doesn't count.)  
  
But I need to know, mom. All I can find in the awful textbooks and the speculative (hah, I found a place to say speculative) sites that aren't pure garbage (even I know what a damn light year is), is that someone, something, like cute puppy-dog can't have been grown on Earth. Faster and stronger than anyone going for world records, that I'll buy. This is Weirdsville, after all. Cracking the sound barrier and treating a tractor like a toy plastic car, that doesn't fall within anything I've read about what DNA can do, and I'm including gorillas and whales and elephants here. (Okay, the big whales could do the tractor thing, but they weigh a little more than Clark. And I'm using the word "little" here again for perspective.)  
  
Scared half out of his mind that someone will see him so much as playing a basketball pickup game, at his size, that rings my weird-o-meter bells.  
  
Are they Out There, mom? Is my good friend, the clumsy nice puppy, who writes the most boring articles I have ever had the displeasure to review and correct, who makes tornadoes feel slow and throws tons of steel around the way I do a broken keyboard, one of those from somewhere on the other side of your Gate?  
  
Is the boy I sometimes want to hug and sometimes want to punch out (though I suspect I'd bust my hand -- he doesn't seem to pay much attention to sharp objects, either) a boy at all? Or is he one of the reasons that you had to leave me?  
  
I'll find you again some day, believe me. If only because I have to know. Is my best friend since I came to this insane town even a human being at all? Or is he one of yours?  
  
It would be really cool if he was.  
  
With all my love,  
Your seriously coffee-deprived daughter.  
  
P.S. Yes, I've read Slan. If he has antennae, they're hidden in that luscious semi-curly hair. I'd give a lot to run my fingers through it and find out. 


	3. The Meeting of the Baldies

And there's always a few years down the line...

The Meeting of the Two Bald Guys

A Required (Because Chloe Deserves It) Happy Ending.

A/N: nothing much changed here, just a little more emphasis on Chloe, to make up for some of the really cruel crap the show's so-called writers keep inflicting on her.

"I appreciate your making time to see me, Mr. President."

Lex Luthor considered the man in front of him. General Hammond stood at formal but not stiff attention with the ease of long practice, a man who could show respect without subservience, who carried power and authority without challenging others. Lex liked him immediately, and not just because he was bald.

"Have a seat, General. In fact, I've been looking forward to talking with you. Far more interesting than trying to straighten out the earth-bound disasters my predecessor's idiot military advisers have gotten us into."

Hammond gave him a glint of humor as he settled himself, in yet another version of that relaxed-but-on-duty poise that had first convinced Lex that he was dealing with an equal. "It takes a special kind of man to consider a galactic threat 'interesting.' Needless to say, I didn't consider your predecessor such a man."

"Well, he had the idiots' vote. Fortunately for all concerned, I own more of the voting infrastructure. Obviously even his rogue CIA and corporate whores didn't understand what it meant to try to out-underhand a Luthor." Lex made a self-deprecating gesture. Left unspoken was the unpleasant truth suspected by many for opposite reasons: that the former president and his handlers had been planning to install a family dynasty of corporate fascism, and the only one with any chance of stopping him was someone even more merciless in the ways of power. "But that's all blood under the bridge. What, exactly, do you need from me today?"

Hammond nodded. Straight and to the point. For all the ruthless Luthor reputation, he liked Lex. He understood what it was like to agonize in private and never be allowed to show it. He was used to having to make the hard choices himself. "I, or we, need your friend. Superman."

Lex's eyes hooded. "Superman is not exactly my friend."

"Clark Kent is. Or at least he was, once."

All the Luthor training couldn't prevent Lex's eyes from widening. "You know...?"

"Mr. President, I run Stargate. I make it my business to know what I need to know."

"Of course." Lex brought himself back to smooth control, and back to the topic at hand. He allowed himself a frown. "It's gotten that bad out there, has it?"

"It's certainly not getting any better."

Lex swiveled his chair away, thinking darkly of the implications.

What his briefings, both from Hammond and about him, had only hinted at, was a war on a scale to make Earth's long-feared planet-wide end-of-the-world scenarios, nuclear or biological or even nanotech, look like sandbox squabbles.

He was all too aware that they used the Stargate technology without understanding it, out of necessity, like a curious child poking a sharp object into a light socket as a desperate measure of last resort.

Yet despite the threat, his primary responsibility remained to a human populace still reeling under a burden of its former dictator-wanna-be's greed, a yoke that was likely to still cost millions more lives in pollution and starvation and idiotic brush wars before he could turn this ship of state around.

He also -- and Hammond knew it, though how he knew was a question Lex intended to indulge his suspicions on later -- had an ace in the hole.

A supremely powerful being, almost a god, who had been raised human.

Had Kal-El's little spaceship landed anywhere else in this entire galaxy except in front of the Kents...

Luthor or no, Lex shivered at the endlessly awful possibilities.

"Why don't you ask Clark yourself?" he said quietly. "You could explain it better than I could. And he's more likely to take it as a duty and an obligation, coming from you. From me, he'd call it high-handed glory-grabbing and fly off in a huff."

"I intend to, Mr. President. If nothing else, I owe him the courtesy of letting him know what he might be getting himself into. And besides," Hammond's lips twisted, "I need to warn him about triggering Jack's temper."

Lex snickered at that. He'd heard about the volatile head of SG-1 when he was looking for someone to take over the Columbian operation. From several people. Who couldn't decide whether they were more afraid of angering President Luthor with "unnecessary details," or not warning him.

"No, sir, what I needed to ask you is, can he be trusted? He's not human, after all."

Luthor or no, Lex blinked at him at the very idea. "Clark? Trusted? What, you think he could be turned on us? Garbage. He's more human than I am. He still flinches when you call him Kal-El. The most you have to worry about is him blushing when he's beating up some bad guy."

"No, no." Hammond made an impatient gesture. "Sir. I'm not questioning his loyalty. I'm questioning his commitment. You're the only one who would know if he can be trusted to carry through when the going gets really ... unpleasant.

"I've had good people beside me before. I never questioned their loyalty. But some of them -- didn't make it. Mentally. They just couldn't handle what was asked of them. And Mr. President," Hammond leaned forward, all the hard discipline of his long work showing in his lined face, "As badly as we need him, I refuse to risk breaking him if he isn't up to it. He can do so much good just staying here. If he can't take it -- out there, and yes, it's bad -- then I'll have wasted a resource that can't be replaced."

Yeesh, and Lex thought he was cold. Clark. Nothing but a resource.

A resource that couldn't be replaced. Lex's blink stayed closed just a fraction of a second too long.

"Clark still beats himself up over every puppy he can't save," Lex said evenly. "But he can take it. He's taken far worse. He's let himself be tortured rather than give up anything more than a defiant look, and for the sake of things" -- and lives, which Lex was not going to admit, not even to Hammond -- "I'd hand over without a second thought. I'd like to punch Superman with a green rock sometimes, but I'd trust Clark with my life. Hell, I've done that a dozen times. I'd trust Clark with Earth."

Hammond gave him a professionally skeptical look. "How about with the rest of the galaxy?"

Lex returned that look serenely, secure in his position of power and knowledge, secure in his understanding and trust of the man he could never afford to admit publicly to being his most important friend. "If they earn it."

Hammond sighed. "I can't promise that. Even some of our allies are dimwitted creeps." That was not exactly the phrase he used, but that was how Lex's PR transcriber wrote it, in the interests of keeping the presidential files non-x-rated. "But maybe I can give him a reason to hope for it. A ... friend of a friend, as it were."

Lex smirked to hide the glint of triumph in his eyes. He'd actually been waiting for this. Hammond had given him the opening he'd scripted for himself in those hopes he'd never dared to voice outside of the silence of his own dreams.

If any human had ever earned the right to his respect and favor, it was someone his family had wronged so terribly as a child -- and who had forgiven him, and gone on.

For that matter, Stargate had wronged her too, in more ways than one. Here was the first installment payment on making up for a few things.

"Please do call Colonel Carter in. I sent for that reporter that keeps giving me such a hard time as soon as I knew you were coming."

"You..." There were not many people who could make Hammond stare in disbelief. "How did you...?"

"I'm the president. I make it my business to know what I need to know." Lex touched his desk com-panel. "Commander Jefferson, is Ms. Sullivan here yet?"

"She just decked one of the guards," Janice Jefferson, his exec, said tiredly. "They're holding her at gunpoint, awaiting your orders. Are you sure we don't need kryptonite on that one?"

"Good lord, no. Haven't you read the Smallville files? She might turn into something even more dangerous. Send her up. Tell the guards to keep at least ten feet away from her, or she'll take their guns away and beat up another one." In a mock-apologetic tone, to Hammond, "Chloe just got back from Israel. She tends to hit first and ask questions later anyway."

"Then mother and daughter ought to get right along." Hammond turned to the door to gesture to his own aide. "Colonel, I apologize for keeping you cooling your heels. The president and I had some delicate information to discuss."

"I understand that, sir, of course," Samantha Carter said stiffly. "But I'm still not sure why I'm here. It's not as if Mr. Luthor couldn't provide all the bodyguards that you ... you..."

The door had shoved open again behind her, and Chloe was in full rant. "Lex Luthor, the next time one of your goons tries to search me starting at my breasts, I'm going to ... I'm..."

Lex made a note to commit this camera scene to the archives. Chloe was speechless.

"Chloe...?"

"M-mom?"

"General," the president said smoothly, "Why don't we head down the hall for a brandy? I think the Oval Office is going to be on privacy circuit for at least an hour or so."

Hammond snorted, pleased. Still, even the scene they were trying not to intrude on was less important than the reason for his visit in the first place. "And your ... friend?"

The president smirked and pointed upwards. "Yes, he's watching. Them instead of us, I imagine, though he does tend to get distracted. No, I never got around to lining the White House with lead. And yes, NORAD is having fits right now. I've tried for years to get the concept of restricted space and fire-control radar through the flying brat's head."

Hammond put a hand over his eyes and shook his head. Lex treated Superman's tendency to be less than properly concerned over things that couldn't affect him as ... well, as a friend would. Of course. "I suppose we could just offer to use him as a shooting target for distraction purposes. None of the Goa'uld know about kryptonite. I hope. Though Felger probably knows. I should just let Jack shoot him."

For a tenth of a second, Lex though Hammond was talking about Jack shooting Clark, and gave him a sharp look. "Oh, you mean Felger. Never mind, I already have someone working on putting his brain into cold storage."

"Thank you. I hate to waste resources. But I swear it's like dealing with a two-year-old who has access to a bright-red button."

Lex made a huge exaggerated sigh. "There's a reason why our codename files often refer to Superman as Clueless, too."

The two men shared a chuckle as they entered Lex's private office to watch the mother and daughter reunion on the private circuit, and the cameras trained on the "flying brat" for his reaction.

Neither gave a damn about intruding on their subordinates' privacy, because they both knew they would need every scrap of information, every advantage, they could get, in the battles to come.

(And neither was about to pass up the chance to see Chloe's reaction when Samantha told her who had ordered that false trail about her mother being committed to a mental hospital when Chloe got too close to Stargate. Hammond was still on the warpath about HOW Chloe had tracked her mother so far, and had not paid enough attention at the time to the casual cruelty O'Neil had done to a left-behind teenager. Well, O'Neil was about to more than meet his match. Probably Teal'C would be content to just watch.)

All is fair in love and war, and the prize for this war was the survival of the human race, or maybe the whole galaxy. Luthor and Hammond had both sold their souls in order to protect their friends, long ago, for the greater good of the people they had chosen to take responsibility for.

It was a bond between the two most powerful people on Earth, each saddled with powers they could wield only with the trembling touch of butterfly's wings, each knowing that chaos and literal hell awaited any tiniest misstep.

"Maybe we could convince Ms. Sullivan to join the Stargate team."

"After she's beaten O'Neil to component molecules? She'll probably insist on it. Heh, that would be one way to snare Clark in for certain."

"It might at least make him more amenable to undergoing proper training... She doesn't have a death wish, does she? From some of her dispatches, Sam was convinced she was suicidal."

"No. Well, except when it comes to Clark. She can't stand Superman, her cousin can't stand Clark, and both of them know he's the same person. So what do they do? Fight about it between themselves. Standing out in the middle of a mortar barrage without a flak jacket is her way of taunting Lois."

But Lex's pensive sigh was at purely mundane matters as they settled back before the bank of monitors, swirling his glass uninterestedly.

You'd think the President of the United States could at least get some decent brandy.

Author's note: yes, the presidential cats (blame LaCasta!) are watching the screens too. Http/ www. Fanfiction. net / s / 1603592 / 6 / (What ELSE would Lex's cats be named, except the Furies? heh )

Alecto: Mrrrl. About time the humans got their act together. They could have done this kitten-ages ago. We need to teach them to communicate.

Tisiphone: Fhrrrr. Humans aren't smart enough to learn proper communication. Not to mention the alien. Bastet knows we've tried to teach them often enough. And the older one here doesn't even smell like cats. Let's fix that.

Megaera: Mew? Look at the claw-resistant one. We can't even jump on him and scratch his clothes when he's flying. That's just not right.

The cute, cuddly-looking tiny tabbies (Allie and Tissy) and little long-hair (Meggie) wandered in as if to sniff curiously at the snacks the two men were absently stoking themselves with while working on critical matters of the survival of the planet and the universe. Lex had forgotten to warn the chef's crew not to bring in cheese when he had official visitors.

Hammond sent the bill for a new uniform directly to the White House.


End file.
